


better with the lights turned on

by marblesharp



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Compliant, Explicit Language, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Mockingjay, Pre-Canon, Quarter Quell, when muttations attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marblesharp/pseuds/marblesharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Haymitch was afraid of monsters and one time he wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	better with the lights turned on

**Author's Note:**

> Placed third in Starvation forum's August prompt, lullaby. I own nothing.

outcome.

He feels like a damn baby with all the lights switched on, a bottle in one fist and a knife in the other. He's forty-two years old and still flinching at every sound, every flicker.

The shadows in the night are different than the ones that scared him witless as a kid, though. They aren't monsters, but people he knew. All of them, he killed or couldn't save. While he's grown used to their presence, he's still just as afraid of them as he was when they were beasts from tales meant to frighten children.

Oh, Haymitch knows of such monsters. They've lunged out of their storybooks right at him before. He was able to fight them, for they only brought physical pain and fear. But Haymitch is vulnerable to the ones that attack him with memories, sting him with guilt, choke him with grief. Over time, these monsters evolved from physical threats to mental, somehow becoming scarier and _oh so_ realer. He longs for the days untainted by blood he's spilled, where the monsters were only figments spun from his youthful imagination.

Now that the sun surmounts the mountains, illuminating the world in dandelion yellow, Haymitch gives into the pull of sleep, too drunk to worry about letting the bedbugs bite or the shadows descend upon him.

In the early evening, he wakes with a start, which he immediately regrets, apologizing to his head wrecked with hangover, and groggily hears a distant sound.

Kaniss is singing again.

A dirge, or something like it if the lyrics are what they sound, floats in through his windows. But she's alive, and her voice is sweet and cuts through him, leaving a warm feeling to spill in behind.

Leave it to an Everdeen to knock him out at the unlikeliest of times.

It's ironic; the girl was once a monster herself, and now she's next door unknowingly singing him to sleep. While the claw marks on his slackened face have healed, they're still there, the faded scars something of a battle wound. Yet the viciously true things she screamed at him haven't quite healed, and they were what made her an animal in his eyes - a feral, wounded animal.

She was a monster, and then Peeta was.

He still is sometimes, temporarily. No matter how short his lapses or how violent his episodes, the boy's mind has involuntarily been mutated so even he himself doesn't know whether he's a snarling Capitol creature or, well, a pretty damn good kid. Katniss attacked Haymitch out of fear of what they would do to Peeta, but neither of them knew the extent of the Capitol's cruelty until they took him…

 _They're better now,_ he believes. They are all healing alongside Panem. That's what Haymitch fought to achieve - a world without monsters - and at least he succeeded that much.

He won't ever thank the girl but he falls asleep a little sober and a little better.

 

five.

He's only been sixteen for a few months and in the arena a couple of days but Haymitch knows whatever is hanging off one of the squirrels' choppers is _not_ a dirt clod. The vegetation in the arena matches his waxsticks from school way back when, all sickeningly vivid. Even the damn mud looks aesthetic, artfully slimy or whatever. No, that would be a piece of a fellow tribute's _scalp_.

Haymitch hurdles a fallen tree, and a branch catches his pantleg. _Should have tucked that into my boot,_ he scolds himself on the way down.

The squirrel muttations catch up with him quickly. They tear at the back of his body and his backpack while he swings a dagger blindly, prostrated, trying to keep them away from his front. Haymitch grunts as he chops through the small, furry beasts at random.

They shriek _so_ _loud_.

Even though he doesn't want to, obviously, he can die right there on the ground, dragged into eternal sleep amid their shrill, wretched lullaby. He isn't sure at what point in that revelation he starts crying, but once he does he finds enough strength stemmed from desperate rage to _survive._

Not soon enough, they're all dead or dying or scampering up trees for safety.

He limps over to the fallen log and applies medicine and bandages to his bleeding scratches, angrily wiping at his eyes. _Fucking squirrels._

Later that week, he's bent down, tying his bootlaces, when a splotch of orange flutters by.

He smiles at the butterfly that lands on his thumb. Its wings match the molten lava that flowed down the mountainside yesterday morning, all stark black and glowing orange. _Well, aren't you pretty._ He twists his hand as it flits over his fingers, where faded scars from home are crossed over with ones from the arena, still puckered and sticky. The butterfly skitters to his wrist and twitches. Then, " _Fuck!_ " _  
_

Writhing, he manages to find cover from any more of them in his sleeping bag. He has to roll partway under the hedgerow so he's not completely vulnerable. Terrified that the butterfly sting hurts so much worse than a wasp sting, he nicks it with his dagger and reaches out to retrieve medicine in…

 _Damn it._ His backpack is still out there in the clearing. Words cannot describe how frustrating and stupid that is. Worse, he might be on national television right now. If a contender comes by, takes it, and kills him, he'll let them without complaint; he'd deserve it for being such a careless fool.

The butterflies take way too long to flutter off but eventually they do. Once they're gone, he climbs out, hears a twig snap, and turns, dagger at the ready, facing a pack of Careers.

This whole Hunger Games thing is bullshit.

Days later, he wakes up under a tarp in a little glade before his turn to take watch. The forest is damp and dripping. Maysilee is braiding her hair.

"What?" his ally asks, defensive, almost exasperated, upon seeing the scowl that greets her after several silent hours.

"Rained a little while I was out." His tone cannot be more condescending.

"So?"

He groans, "You were supposed to get more water." His words are muffled halfway through the sentence as he pulls the fold of his sleeping bag over his face.

"Oh, it's been raining on and off all day." She waves a hand dismissively toward the two cartons they replenished that afternoon, each missing about an inch of water. "That's plenty enough to last a few more days."

"You don't know that. What if it doesn't rain again for a while?"

"Then we'll stop to rest so we don't waste energy and water," she replies, "like I suggested earlier."

"I hate stopping," he mutters to the perfectly manicured grass.

"Why?" Maysilee asks again for the hundredth time. "Why not stop and just _wait_ instead of walking in one direction?" She glares as he rolls his eyes and ignores her.

When she stands, with what seems every intent to leave, to _abandon_ him, he sits up and calls, "Wait!" He winces at the irony, but she does. "There were," he makes a wing gesture with his hands that must look ridiculous to her, "mutts - before we met up."

"I know that; I was in the same woods." She doesn't understand. She's tactful to have survived this far, the Town girl, so perhaps she hasn't been attacked yet. _Doubt those squirrels could've reached her without getting a dart or two in their fur_ , he thinks.

"We're in danger of them catching us, standing still," says Haymitch. It's not a lie nor his reason for traveling in the same direction. She must know that but doesn't comment any further - for now.

Instead, she tells him to go back to sleep, then busies herself by dipping the tips of her blowgun darts in the surrounding poisonous nectar. Somehow he's okay with that.

Above them, birds warble one last song before they take to their nests for the night. They're out unnaturally late. Haymitch isn't sure whether they're dangerous but they sound nice. Maysilee hums along and continues once they're gone, replaced by crickets, adding notes of her own. It still sounds pleasant.

Listening to her, warm in his sleeping bag, it's the first time in the arena he's felt remotely safe. Afterward, there's a silence that would be comfortable if they weren't here.

He's almost snoring when Maysilee asks, "You want me to kiss you goodnight, too, little baby?"

"In your dreams, sweetheart."

 

four.

It's late February, still winter in Twelve, and he feels as cold as the air as he digs snow out from under the fence. Next to him is his game bag, steaming from the fresh meat inside. The snow will keep it chilled until it can be traded. Not much today, just a wild turkey; the weather's bad and they need to get home soon before it storms again.

Artie hangs back to collect some pine needles and tree bark, stuffing them into his own bag full of plants. That's how he and Rohan first found Artie Everdeen outside the district, completely at ease among the trees and shrubbery whereas they were stumbling over rocks and anxiously flicking ticks off their trousers. Artie ventured beyond the fence to gather herbs he knew about through family. Haymitch and Rohan figured there weren't many things worse than starving.

So when Haymitch slides out, seeing the people he does not _ever_ want to see as he does so, and stupidly tries to crawl back under only to thrash around as he's roughly swept through again by a pair of gloved hands, Artie is safe and hidden in the forest.

The Peacekeeper who pulled Haymitch out grabs him by his coat buttons and lifts him to his feet. She's tall. All of her teeth are straight, glistening white like fresh snow when they sneer at him.

"That fence is there to keep animals out," he's told as his bag full of illegal turkey is taken from his shaking grasp, "and filth like you in." A spit follows that. He can't reach to wipe it off his cheek since they've locked his hands behind him.

He can look back at Artie and mouth _help_ , but he doesn't do that either.

The Head Peacekeeper's office reminds him of the school principal's - except punishment there pales in comparison to what's coming, no _we're letting you off with a warning_ or _I won't be so lenient next time so make sure there is no next time_.

"Apparently, I need to enforce district enclosure patrols if you've found a way through the electric barrier," the Head Peacekeeper says, brow and hands folded. Haymitch resists the urge to roll his eyes. The fence has been lapsing since Snow took office and nobody cares enough to repair it. "I'll assume it was the first time by how horribly cut the meat is." The bag slams down on the metal table between them. Haymitch is standing, still handcuffed, so he can't hide behind it though he wouldn't, anyway.

 _Well, Rohan's our usual butcher and he's sick, so,_ he thinks, face heated with embarrassment. "Yeah," he lies.

"How did you kill it?" For a moment, the man doesn't sound professional but amused, and he actually kind of chuckles. Bastard.

"It was already dead." _From our snares,_ Haymitch finishes inwardly. He shrugs and glances at his wet boots, feigning youthful ignorance. "I saw it outside the fence and plucked it out there so no one could try to take it."

The Head shakes his head as he writes something down. "Poaching is stealing property from the Capitol, which is punishable by death." Haymitch remembers Rohan, then - _There aren't many things worse than starving, Mitchie, there just aren't._ "Name?"

He tells him.

"Age?"

He swallows. "Sixteen."

Is that a worried look? "Need your birthday, too, boy." Definitely pity, definitely a bastard.

"The fourth of this month," he answers, even adds, "sir."

The creases in the Head's face deepen when he frowns at him.

Soon, Haymitch's hands are released, only to be tied up high onto the whipping post. They had to peel off his coat and shirt first, to which Haymitch mused wryly, _How considerate of them._

The whip whistles. Thankfully, it's not a gunshot but it's not a soothing sound, either. From this angle, it is unfamiliar. The overwhelming pain that follows threatens to knock him out. He fights the harsh, rhythmic lullaby, fights to _stay awake_ because he really isn't sure what will happen if he doesn't. It's all so terrifying and hurts like hell - like _fire_. He hates burns enough already.

What's odd is that the actual weapon is just a strip of leather that would otherwise be harmless if not in the hands of the Head Peacekeeper. Haymitch can endure the whip but he cannot escape what's controlling it.

 _Great_ , he thinks, gritting his teeth and anticipating the next lash, _guess_ _I become a shitty philosopher when brought to justice_.

He's all too aware of the silent presence of his audience, despite all his writhing and lurching. Shame doesn't nick the surface of how he feels. Still, in the back of his mind he's already decided that, if he survives, he'll hunt again once he heals up.

He hears his mother, then, and oh, how she screams. She must have left Cory with the neighbors, maybe even Mollie, after someone told her the news that her idiot oldest son got caught. What a cruel way for her to find out that he poaches.

During the fifth whistle of the switch, Haymitch notices Artie with her on the fringe of the crowd, looking guilty to be relieved and relieved that he's guilty, not tied up with him.

The ninth lash seems to cut harder than the rest, but Haymitch is proven wrong when the tenth comes slicing through. Is he screaming?

By the thirteenth, he doesn't remember his own name.

The next one, he's so ready to give in and shut his eyes, maybe permanently _. Two more, just two more -_ he cries out _\- just one more..._

Sixteen lashes are singed into his back. The air is so brisk they steam as well as smart.

He's unconscious before he can determine who he hates more, the Capitol or his neighbors that just watched and start to walk away.

 

three.

He's fifteen, it's late afternoon, and Mollie is nestled into the Meadow grass, her skirt fanning out around her propped-up knees.

"Hey," says Mollie, and it's not a greeting because they walked here together. Usually this kind of _hey_ was a preamble to the proposal of a scheme.

He grunts in reply, tearing blades of grass from the dirt.

"You're still going to the festival, right?" she asks.

Haymitch gives her a sidelong glance. "Yeah."

"Well," she smirks, and _oh,_ _this'll be good_ , "we should do something original for that last song, the real fast one that one fiddler always plays for the grand finale or whatever." Community festivals are really the only time Haymitch appreciates people, only because they're too busy dancing to speak. The music is always quick and lively yet toward the end, a single fiddler strikes up a frantic tempo that would end in cacophony if the rest of the measly ensemble played along.

He turns over onto his back like her and searches the clouds for a retort. Clueless yet willing to play along, if this is even a game, he ventures, "Like what?"

Mollie stares straight into the swollen blue sky, scrunching her nose in thought. "Maybe a different dance, some ridiculous Capitol one." After he asks why exactly they'd do that, the grass rustles as she shrugs. "Because it'd be hilarious. Nobody would expect it from us." Haymitch rolls his eyes, back onto his stomach. "Duh," Mollie laughs, as if the reason is obvious.

Sighing, Haymitch shifts his elbows so he's looking down at her. "Which one are we doing, then?" He raises his brows.

Mollie sits up. "How about I just show you? You're a quick learner." She pulls him up, which is really him reluctantly standing while she tugs at his arms. "Remember, we have to look stupid," she reminds him, to which he rolls his eyes again.

Haymitch lays a gentle hand on her waist while Mollie wraps an arm around him tightly. Their other hands tangle for a moment before they clasp like how the people on television do it.

They get in about four steps and an awkward dip before Haymitch accidentally stomps on a nest - a kind of enormous one. Once he realizes, it doesn't take very long for Mollie to as well.

"Think we've got the moves for a few laughs if we can piss off an entire colony," he hollers as he sprints across the Meadow. No snide remark calls back. "Mollie?" He slows to a jog, looks around and over his shoulder, causing him to trip over a gnarled root.

Roots - fucking bullshit.

The grass is damp and cool while his skin ignites. Every sharp pang burns horribly, and soon the welts the wasps leave behind throb and swell up and they just _hurt_.

"Haymitch!" It's the first time Haymitch has ever heard Mollie so terrified.

It scares the hell out of him.

Her retreating form is veiled by a dark haze as the wasps swarm him. He can't distinguish them individually, which is frightening enough, and although he feels there are hundreds, they become a single assailant.

His mind is muddled and the whole world is buzzing when he feels someone clasp his elbow and lift the veil, so to speak, with a couple sweeps of their arm.

He is a boy on fire by the time his sorry swollen self is dragged out of the Meadow. After a quick self-assessment and a successful deep breath, Haymitch knows he needs the apothecary, not the district doctor, whose treatment he couldn't afford, anyway.

Arms too thick to be Mollie's struggle to support him since the joints are distended. Haymitch knows who would be in the Meadow during working hours to come and help them.

Once they're away from the wasps, Mollie joins Haymitch and the herdsman, walking alongside them and muttering assurances to Haymitch and herself. Haymitch is disoriented and aching and _is this what it feels like to be poisoned?_ so he can't comfort her, even though he wants to. The swelling on his forehead makes sight difficult but Haymitch just can't keep his eyes closed.

"Are you okay?" His voice sounds bad, all hoarse and garbled.

"Uh, compared to you," she laughs shakily, then stops altogether, recognizing how serious the situation is. "I'm okay. Got stung on the back of my thigh, that's all." He doubts she can see his attempt to nod.

"My oh my, girl," the drover rasps to Mollie. "Make yourself useful and head over to the Moore's; Rayan's working there. Saw her when I went to buy barley for the goats today. Tell her I'm taking her son to the apothecary's stoop and whether she takes him in is her decision."

Mollie obeys, scampering off.

The herdsman coughs a hacking cough, no doubt brought on by black lung. "Heavier than you look, kid." Haymitch coughs himself. He may or may not direct it toward the man's chest, into threadbare cotton. It shakes against him as the man chuckles. "You are your mother's son, that's for sure."

Then, something weird happens. The filthy, musty drover begins to whistle. It's clear and smooth while his voice sure as hell isn't.

Haymitch lets the sound permeate his mind, eradicating the pain, and tries to rest as much as he can because it's as good as he's going to get until the sleep syrup and soaked, tepid rags.

 

two.

At fourteen years old, Haymitch doesn't dare show how wary he is as he approaches the tree. His knife is more of a shield, something between the tree and him, than a weapon.

Rohan and Artie wait, hunched down in the undergrowth with their bows drawn.

Blood drips down the bark, which doesn't help his anxiety unless he remembers it belongs to the prey, not the predator, and that _he_ is the predator, tracking a trail caused by Rohan's shitty aim.

 _Seriously, who misses a fat, lazy raccoon?_ Haymitch is still stewing over that as he slinks up to an ominously quiet trunk. The arrowhead grazed its back and suddenly the thing was scampering up a maple like it _wasn't_ a retired masked bandit. In collective retrospect, it should be Artie's quiver missing an arrow but they hadn't seen anything bigger than a squirrel this whole weekend and got a bit stupid, all wound up.

Since the best way to kill a wounded animal is a near cut, and Haymitch is the best with a knife... Well, he didn't exactly volunteer.

Haymitch peers into the hollow right when a beautiful voice croons, then learns a raccoon paw resembles a dark, skeletal hand.

Five minutes or so later, two boys are still trying to staunch the flow of blood gushing from their friend's face while he curses at a dead animal.

Then, finally realizing that they have game that isn't going to respond or fight back anymore, Haymitch shoves Artie's balled-up shirt-yielding hand away from him. "What the _hell_ was that, Everdeen!?"

The boy stutters in response, "I - I was just trying to sing it out into the open for you. I didn't think you'd get distracted..."

"Or fall asleep." Rohan chuckles despite all the blood, and Haymitch wants to add his to the mess.

"Shut up! I fucking hate you guys." His nose plugged up with torn cotton affects his already nasally accent, causing his friends to stifle laughter in their throats.

Haymitch scowls menacingly at anyone who stares at his bandaged nose for a second too long at the Hob. He still trades with them, though haggling spitefully. They receive a lot for the raccoon pelt, and two coins are handed to Haymitch along with _guess you earned this by yourself, Abernathy_ before they divvy the rest of their money between the three of them.

Grudgingly, Haymitch invests in some antibiotic herbs from the apothecary.

Rohan Hawthorne teases that the scratch across his nose will look sexy as hell once it scabs over and returns to school on Monday with the ugliest split lip ever.

Truth is, Haymitch doesn't actually know who Artie's idea distracted more, him or the old raccoon. He still managed to stab it dead before it could maul him. The dreadful thought of almost losing because he wasn't quick enough stays with him for days, though he's not going to admit that to anyone anytime soon.

 

one.

He's nine and a half years old and already having trouble sleeping.

A day ago, the reason would have been a stomachache or his brother whining that he was hogging the blanket. Now, he'd give _anything_ for Cory to complain if he were to roll away from him, shouldering the hem and taking the quilt with him, or for the rumble of his empty belly to keep him awake. But Haymitch doesn't have the heart to move while his brother's nestled against him, his faint breath tickling Haymitch's neck, and the growls from deep within their hungry stomachs are muffled by the wailing.

Haymitch wants to cry himself, witnessing the moans of a wounded man and not being able to help him. He _knows_ his father isn't a monster but it's _scary_ hearing him like this when he's supposed to grin all toothily and laugh so loud everybody else laughs and curse like a fiend after he nicks himself shaving.

The mines claimed many lives today. Haymitch saw a few colliers succumb to their injuries, and now he can't help but fear that smoke will billow into the house and take his father as well.

The alarm sounded out over the district earlier that evening, disrupting the quiet of poverty. Haymitch's mother had just come home, her shoulders hunched from work and her hair frizzy from the humidity, when it first started blaring, and she set her bag of cleaning supplies on a chair like she always does, which somehow alleviated Haymitch's immediate fear.

At the mine entrance, they crowded up against the rope that kept them back, far enough away to be safe. Almost the entire Seam was there, trying to see through the smoke that billowed out from the entrance, searching in vain for their loved ones.

The elevators were screeching, overworked. Miners emerged from underneath the black, swirling column. Haymitch almost choked on the smoke rising from their uniforms, all hot and dry and thick, as they were pulled away from the entrance, toward the crowd.

He watched one woman limp toward another next to his brother and fall heavily into her arms. Streaked down her lower back and leg - that was scorched flesh. He could smell the skin burning, hear it sizzling. Haymitch steered Cory to his other side only to push the child behind him as an armless, bloodied man staggered out with the help of a foreman.

Haymitch shrunk back at the sight of the other injured victims. He looked up at his mother. Her hand was pressed to her mouth while the other gripped his shoulder, tightening with each surge of colliers. Tears threatened to spill over her lashes but his mother _never_ cried so that's when he realized how scared he was supposed to be as well.

Most of the colliers were burnt, some were limbless, many dropped their headlamps and vomited. None of them were Haymitch's father.

Suddenly, his mother gasped and ducked under the rope. She embraced her brother, who was dusty with debris but otherwise unharmed. He said something to her and pointed to where the injured were being treated. She blanched, nodded, and walked back to Haymitch and Cory.

"Haymitch, you need to take your brother home."

Hands on his hips and stubby black brows stitched into a scowl, Haymitch demanded, "Where are you going?" His voice was tremulous.

"To help your father. He made it out but he's badly hurt."

His eyes flickering to the limbless survivors and the pallor of his face prompted his mother to shake her head. "Not like them, not that bad," she assured him. "Please, darling, head on home. He's going to be okay."

Back home, Haymitch held his sobbing brother while they sat on their parents' mattress. They shouldn't have brought Cory, except there was no one to watch him when the entire neighborhood was there. Witnessing trauma like that shouldn't be a concern for a young boy like Cory, but neither should hunger or poverty or, soon, televised genocide.

After a couple of hours, the sirens stopped so abruptly Haymitch could still hear them reverberating through his ears while a little voice croaked, "Does that mean he's okay?"

"I don't know."

"When is Momma coming back?"

"When Daddy comes back with her," Haymitch answered curtly, needing to believe that himself.

Before he could dwell on the thought that his father could have been _too dead_ to hear the alarm stop, several colliers with sooty, lined faces and callused hands carried the man into their squat house.

Arms that could only be his mother's went around him then. She sniffled before letting go so she could help the other adults set his father on the mattress.

Cory tugged on Haymitch's shirt, then pointed at their father. "Ouch." Following the child's focus, he saw his father's arm was injured. Blood seeped through the bandages.

Haymitch winced and guided Cory behind him. "Is - is he going to be okay?"

Grunting, one of the older colliers replied, "Yeah. Your father's a good man, you know. He saved me from getting something a whole lot worse than this." He bared his sweaty neck where a huge blister was forming.

"Ouch," Cory mumbled into the base of Haymitch's back.

"Daddy will be all right, boys," their mother said softly as she took Cory up on her hip and kissed his nose. "Why don't you go to bed, hm?"

Now, they're in bed, all right. But in the dim candlelight - Cory is afraid of the dark, and tonight, so is Haymitch - they can easily see the bandages covering their father's entire left arm and shoulder and hear the hisses coming from his mouth. They are both wide awake.

Haymitch looks down at the dark curly head of his little brother, and gray eyes blown wide with fear stare right back up at him, probably mirroring his own. Haymitch holds him close and can feel his own face contort into a grimace. A convulsive sob escapes before he can muffle it into his threadbare pillow.

His little brother says something. Haymitch pulls away. "What?" he whispers.

"Said _I_ _sing_ ," Cory reiterates, a bit too loud. Then, he does. A hesitant grin stretches Haymitch's cheeks, crowding light freckles together, while Cory lisps strings of letters, and, with assistance, the entire alphabet song, several times. Occasionally, Cory interjects what word starts with a certain letter - apparently, Haymitch starts with _w._ Smoke starts with _s_.

They're beginning the song again when Haymitch notices his father's breathing has relaxed in sleep. His mother sighs at the respite and shifts carefully under the covers. Cory sings himself to sleep, trailing off somewhere after _j_.

The mines open a month later. Well enough, Haymitch's father leaves for work and his crew excavates a little too far underground, their canary falls silent, and they don't come back up. Haymitch isn't certain whether he's relieved that their bodies cannot be retrieved.

That night, at Haymitch's suggestion - he's been trying _so hard_ not to break down - Cory tries to sing again but ends up crying until their mother gathers them both in her arms in her bed.

 

negative one.

He's putting the skillets and pans back into the cabinet when he finally throws one in anger. Doing so upsets the rest of the them, and he scrabbles to catch them, too late, the pans clanging to the floor around his bare feet.

"Stupid," he grumbles to himself, clutching his toes. Haymitch had to go inside after the countdown to midnight because it's a school night and _it's too late for a boy your age to be out_ and _make sure you put away the dishes, you hear me?_ so naturally he's irritated at everything right now.

While his foot hasn't bruised yet, his head hurts now. _Must've been from all the noise outside_ , he thinks pointedly as he hops on one foot through the house that, to him, is enormous. Pans are stupid. He may or may not wish the older kids get hit with falling - or _flying_ , that'd be cool - pans tonight. They're allowed to stay up later just because they're not six like he is.

Next to the table are his father's work boots. Haymitch is bored, curious, and mad so he tries to kick both of them over and stubs the same toes in the process. Worse, as his foot connected with the table's leg, he knocked down one of his schoolbooks and a candle, snuffing it out. Dark encloses him a little more but the clangs and laughter nearby assure him that he's not alone.

Haymitch stuffs his feet into the oversized boxes for boots to protect them from any further damage, because really, this is getting ridiculous.

Something's alight beside his parents' bed, he notices, tying the bootlaces into complicated yet useless knots. Doesn't scare him. None of the candles could ignite something way over there. Still bored, he investigates, anyway. Hanging on a bedpost are a miner jacket and headlamp. Haymitch reaches out to touch the national emblem stitched into the rough material. It glows in the dark.

There's some drunken ruckus outside and, forgetting his severe foot impairment, Haymitch dives under the covers of his parents' bed wearing his father's gear. He's not scared, he's just waiting.

He waits for his mother to come inside so she can ruffle his hair after removing the headlamp, tickle his feet back into health, and maybe even tuck him in.

Somehow her goodnight kisses and lullabies of twangy mountain airs scare away all the monsters.


End file.
